


Safer To Lie

by be11atrixthestrange



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Family Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Memory Alteration, Muggle/Wizard Relations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29184456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/be11atrixthestrange/pseuds/be11atrixthestrange
Summary: When she pointed her wand at the back of her parents' heads and erased herself from their minds, it felt like she was erasing someone else, a false version, a caricature of their daughter they'd created over the years.She tried to convince herself it wasn't that much of a lie, because they'd never really known her at all.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Comments: 14
Kudos: 33





	Safer To Lie

Hermione had been lying about magic for as long as she could remember.

She didn't have many friends in primary school, and she figured it was because she was the _weird kid._ It was safer to lie than to tell her teacher that yes, she did cause Billy Weston's science project to spontaneously catch fire. Otherwise, they would have called her the weird _and_ mental kid. But Billy saw through it, and to him, she became _the weird kid who could do scary things._

Hermione knew there was something different about her. She sensed she was a witch before she knew for sure, but she didn't dare tell anyone. Things started to make sense once Professor McGonagall arrived at her house with her Hogwarts letter, but it wasn't until the end of her first year that she truly embraced the power of being magical.

While entangled in Devils' Snare, lamenting that she didn't have any fire, Ron Weasley's words reminded her that there was a simple magical solution.

" _Have you gone mad? Are you a witch or what?"_

Being a wizard was so normal for Ron Weasley. His shorter letters, which Hermione had taken to reading over his shoulder, punctuated his casual attitude toward magic.

" _Today, I finally learned Wingardium Leviosa and my Lumos is getting brighter! This weekend we're going to the Quidditch match, but I promise I'll find time to study for the Transfiguration quiz."_

 _He doesn't need to explain anything_ , she thought enviously, while her hand cramped from her long-winded description of Quidditch and Transfiguration.

She wondered what it would have been like to grow up with a magical family like the Weasleys. Things seemed easier for Ron because he didn't have to keep track of two different worlds. Sometimes she felt like her parents forgot she was a witch, and unlike Ron, she was often tempted to remind them. Especially when they asked about school subjects she wasn't taking or gave her advice that didn't make sense in the magical world. When they sent her a set of pencils and notebooks for Christmas, she had to hide her annoyance in her letter.

" _For the tenth time, I'm a witch. We use quills and parchment."_

Beyond her occasional irritation, she was ultimately grateful that her parents let her go to Hogwarts.

" _It's safe there?"_ her dad had asked Professor McGonagall the summer before her first year.

" _I can assure you, there's no safer place, Mr Granger."_

Since her participation in the magical world was only allowed under the condition that it was safe, she had to make sure her parents still believed it was. To preserve their peace of mind, she began limiting what she told them.

"Were your professors nice?" asked her mum when she exited the Hogwarts Express and ran into their waiting embrace.

"Yes, they were all amazing!" she said. _Except for the one who tried to kill Harry._

"And you learned a lot?"

"I learned so much." _Like how to make a three-headed dog fall asleep._

When she waved goodbye to Harry and Ron, her parents asked, "I didn't realize those boys were your friends now. What happened?"

 _They saved me from a Mountain Troll._ "I guess they just changed their minds."

She made a promise that she would only lie about the dangerous things that would worry them. When her dad asked her how her second year went, it wasn't _technically_ a lie when she said, "pretty boring and uneventful for me. I didn't do much." She couldn't tell him it was only uneventful because she was petrified by a Basilisk.

"I like that. Boring and uneventful sounds safe," he said, and her stomach twisted with guilt.

he continued to tell her parents about things they would understand. She told them about how much she hated Divination, the extra time she spent studying (but not _all_ of the extra time, of course), and her months-long fight with Ron. At the end of her third year, they noticed that she and Ron were friends again. "You two aren't fighting anymore," her mum asked on the car ride home. "Does that mean he found his rat?"

"Yes, he found his rat." She definitely couldn't tell her about Peter Pettigrew. It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the truth either.

Her summer with her family was cut short when she left with the Weasleys to attend the World Cup. She would have loved more time with her parents, but she also craved the freedom to talk openly and the simplicity of not having to keep track of her lies.

"Have fun at the football game," her mom had told her before she left.

"For the fourteenth time, I'm a witch, Mum. It's Quidditch."

Her mum just chuckled and smiled. "I know. I just picture football to make sense of it."

She wondered how much more of her life her parents only understood by drawing connections to the Muggle world. Even though they wanted to know more and were always willing to learn, all of their knowledge of her life was based on lies. She figured it was better that way, so she continued to keep a firm distance between the Muggle and magical worlds, building a wall that they couldn't cross.

As her world grew darker, lying became easier.

"How did that tournament go? Did Harry win?"

As far as her parents knew, the Triwizard Tournament was harmless and friendly. No one had to fight dragons. No one was taken hostage by merpeople. No one died.

"Yes, Dad, he won."

"Good for him. How did the other Hogwarts participant do?"

She paused to steady her voice before answering. "Not well."

"That's too bad."

"Yeah. It is." Part of her longed to tell them the truth, but she convinced herself the lies were necessary.

When Hermione became accustomed to the dangers of her world, her story started to slip. When she casually mentioned Professor Moody's lesson on unforgivable curses, her parents were horrified that magic could do so much harm.

"They don't teach you how to do those curses, right?"

"No, Dad, only evil wizards do them. You don't have to worry."

"Why are you learning how to defend yourself against them? Is there a risk that someone could use them against you?"

Hermione chose not to answer, but the pause in the conversation was tense instead of reassuring.

"You're still safe there, right?"

"Of course, Dad."

Silence followed, and Hermione was relieved the conversation appeared to end. But she could tell her Dad's head was spinning.

"Y _ou'd_ never use magic to hurt anyone, right?"

"Of course not!" she responded, in a tone that suggested she'd taken offense.

It seemed to appease her Dad, but her guilt strengthened. She wondered if she was lying about that too.

The following year, Hermione re-committed to convincing her parents that the magical world was safe, which meant doubling down on her lies. She opted to tell them she didn't come skiing over the holidays because she was overwhelmed with schoolwork, instead of the truth: that she wanted to comfort Ron after his dad was nearly killed. She even lied to Mrs Weasley.

"Hermione, I will write to your parents to let them know you've arrived safely," said Molly when Hermione showed up at Grimmauld Place.

"Already did, Mrs Weasley. They wish Arthur a fast recovery."

"Wonderful. Tell them 'thank you', and send them my love."

"Will do." Her stomach twisted. They knew nothing about Arthur's accident, and she didn't intend to tell them.

At the school year's end, she bit her tongue and only said kind things about Dolores Umbridge, and made sure her parents didn't catch a glimpse of Harry's _I Must Not Tell Lies_ scar at the train station. She learned how to mask a grimace when a flash of pain gripped her chest because she wasn't fully healed from her near-death experience at the Ministry of Magic.

"Are you ok?" asked her Mum when she clutched her side and failed to muffle a gasp. "What happened?"

 _I broke into the Ministry of Magic and was struck in the chest by an unknown curse while dueling Death Eaters._ "I must have slept in a strange position."

"Oh, that's too bad. A heating pad might help."

"It might, yeah."

Most of her deception was intentional, and Hermione took responsibility for how little her parents knew. But soon enough, it became apparent that they didn't know _her_ very well, either. That part was an accident, and she wondered if she was responsible for it too. She started to worry that the version of herself that existed in their minds was better than the real one. She hadn't meant to lie about who she was, and she didn't want to be responsible for a false image she could never live up to.

Her dad's question frequently slid into her mind. _You'd never use magic to hurt anyone, right?_

As if to answer her father, she pictured Marrietta's Edgecumbe's face, streaked with a scar that read SNEAK — a product of Hermione's curse for ratting out Dumbledore's Army.

She tried to shake the image from her mind, but it remained. _That was a fluke_ , she told herself. _I won't have to lie about hurting people again._

But she did — when she came home with a broken heart in her sixth year because Ron Weasley was dating a different girl, she never mentioned the canary attack.

"Mum, he hates me," Hermione cried. "He'll never want to be my friend again."

"Impossible." She scoffed if off like Hermione was simply a blubbering, heartbroken girl talking nonsense. "He has no reason to be angry with _you,_ you've done nothing to hurt him."

She recalled the flock of birds pecking the skin on Ron's arms raw, and the scars he now wore that showed she was nothing more than that weird girl who could do scary things. Just like Billy Weston had said, "It's better not to mess with that one."

Their divide was even more noticeable the summer after her sixth year. It was clear how little her mum knew her when she pulled her aside to talk to her about contraception.

"I know you and Ron have made up, and even though you say you're not together, I want you to be prepared. Just in case."

"For the seventeenth time, I'm a witch. We have charms for that."

She left out the full truth. No, she and Ron weren't together, but even if they were, the following year wouldn't be offering many opportunities for _that._ She felt a pang of regret because it was such a normal thing for a mother and daughter to discuss, and her mum still thought she had the luxury of being ordinary.

"Okay, I trust you," she said, and when she hugged her, all Hermione could think was " _you really shouldn't,"_ but she said nothing.

The image her parents had created of Hogwarts, the magical world, and her life was a false one, and it stayed that way. They never learned about Horcruxes or that Dumbledore died. They never found out there was an anti-muggle regime forming at the Ministry. They didn't know she wasn't returning to school, and in a few days, they wouldn't even know who she was.

She couldn't have suddenly explained everything and expected that they would understand the gravity of the war. She would have had to start telling the truth back in her first year, and it was too late for that. Altering their memories was the _only_ solution.

When she pointed her wand at the back of her parents' heads and erased herself from their minds, it felt like she was erasing someone else, a false version, a caricature of their daughter they'd created over the years.

She was broken-hearted — this was by far her biggest deception yet. Holding back tears, she gathered her things and left. As if by habit, her mind immediately tried to justify her actions, although this time half-heartedly. She tried to convince herself it wasn't _that_ much of a lie, because they'd never really known her at all.

x

Ron and Hermione were standing on the front porch of an unfamiliar home in a foreign city, about to knock on the door to speak to Wendell and Monica Wilkins.

"Are you ready to do this?" he asked.

"I'm a witch, aren't I?" She knew the exact set of spells to reverse the memory charm she'd performed on her parents to turn them back into Jean and Hugo Granger, and promote herself from a complete stranger to their daughter.

Ron chuckled and squeezed her hand reassuringly. "I know, and isn't being a witch how you got into this mess?"

Unfortunately, he was right — magic was not the fix-all that she thought it would be. It created as many problems as it solved, maybe even more. She'd learned the hard way that spells and curses could destroy relationships, but they couldn't always put them back together. That was on her.

"In that case, I don't know if I can do this."

"They'll forgive you," he said, and his words struck an insecurity buried deeply within her.

_Just like he had forgiven her for the canaries._

"And once you let them get to know you… they'll love you."

_Like he loved her, the weird kid who could do scary things._

A smile flashed across her face. Maybe they would love their daughter: the real version. The witch. The one who could use magic to hurt people, but was willing to work hard to fix it.

Before she could do it, he tapped his fist against the door. She probably would have stood there for ages, frozen and unable to bring herself to knock.

Her breathing halted when she saw a figure approaching through the window. Ron squeezed her hand. 'You can do this," he whispered.

The door creaked open, and a tall, thin man with dark skin, salt and pepper hair, and wide-rimmed glasses appeared. Her father. She had the urge to hug him, and she almost did, but the lack of recognition in his eyes stopped her.

"How can I help you?" he asked. His curiously blended Australian and English accent placed him somewhere between her father and a total stranger.

In her pocket, her sweaty palm gripped her wand, and she knew she had to act fast, but it seemed wrong to point a wand at a stranger, even more so than it had been to point it at her dad, more than a year prior. Why was that?

Her mind was racing. She was frozen. Maybe she couldn't do this.

"Hermione, now," whispered Ron.

Wendell Wilkins looked suspiciously at Ron. "Sorry, we don't accept solicitors here," he said, as he began to close the door.

Ron laid his free hand on the door to keep it open, and a combination of fear and anger flashed on Wendell Wilkins's face. "What are you—"

"Hermione," Ron whispered, this time through clenched teeth.

It was the wrong time to panic, and she knew that. She took a deep breath, drew her wand, and pointed it at her father. His eyes widened in both fear and confusion as he tried to force the door shut, but Ron leaned his body weight into it while Hermione muttered the well-rehearsed counter-charm.

She watched as the fear in his eyes fizzled away, and recognition took over.

"Dad?"

Hugo Granger was frozen in shock as he looked at his daughter, and suddenly, he felt like less of a stranger to her. The way they both stood there, unmoving and barely breathing seemed familial. For the first time in years, she felt connected to him, and she hoped it was mutual.

"Hermione?"

Ron slipped away from the door as Hugo's arms reached out to embrace her. The tears that had been on standby for years suddenly burst from her eyes. She didn't even know she was holding them back just as pointedly as Hermione held back information, and she hoped that she'd be able to release the truth just as freely.

"Where's Mum?"

"She's at the store but… Hermione, what happened to us?" Hugo asked.

Another shiver of anxiety swept over her at the thought of explaining and reliving the truth, but she owed it to him. "I have _so much_ to tell you both."


End file.
